August Garden Survey III

Kay Mcinnis and Wendy Leanse are the coordinators at the Temple Emanu-El Community Garden. This is Part III of our August Garden Survey. Great information from a fruitful Dallas County Master Gardener project on the grounds of Temple Emanu-El.

In August you should be planning for the fall. Take a look at the planting guide put out by TAMU. Its mostly too hot to plant seeds directly into the beds so it’s ideal to start plants indoors.

We are harvesting Long Beans, Cucumbers (particularly Armenian cucumbers which don’t seem to be bothered by aphids), okra, peppers, eggplant, collard greens and tons of black eyed peas and our Cucuzzi squash has just started producing.

A Look Down Long Bean Alee; See Long Beans Dangling from the Vines

We have bitter melons planted that have also just started to bear. Ruth Klein introduced us to several tropical vegetables that don’t seem to be bothered by Texas pests that have done well.

Bitter Melon at Temple Eman-uel Garden

We have 3 tomatoes planted to see if we can get a fall crop – maybe or maybe not…

We are at the end of our chard and will be preparing the beds to receive some Mustard Greens, Chinese Cabbage and various root vegetables that will produce through the winter.

As our current crops wind down, we will see if we can amend the soil and get a quick crop in or if we should re-new the beds with a cover crop. I have already ordered seeds for that since I found that last year things got sold out.

Last year we put in drip irrigation and are currently watering our beds 3 times a week for 60 min each. We will cut back if it ever rains again in Texas, or when it cools down. We also have volunteers that check our garden during the week to see if everything seems to be getting watered. We found that as the irrigation lines weather, they tend to pop off and need to be re-attached using hose clamps.

A Reminder of the Effort Involved to Lay Drip Irrigation, but it’s Worthwhile!

Our gardeners meet every week on Sunday at 8:30am where we clean up, weed, water what is necessary and harvest/prepare vegetables to take to the Vickery Meadows Food Pantry!